Can your students join 10,000 others designing our future?

At TEDxLondon, BLC, Naace and a few other events this summer I asked if people wanted to join me in trying to encourage more curricula that were based less on students solving the irrelevant, contrived pseudo problems given to them in textbooks, and based more on finding great, real world problems that need solved.

A superb opportunity for action has come along.

Ever wondered what 10,000 young people could do to solve some of the world’s greatest problems? We want to know for the world’s most important ICT event, ITU Telecom World 11, by gathering young people's vision for the future on world2011.us.

The October 24-27 event is the flagship meeting of the world’s telecoms industries, brought together by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the specialised United Nations agency responsible for information and communication technologies. In the run up to the event, and during it, we’ll be showcasing the ideas of young people, aged 8-18, alongside the debates, panels and corridor discussions of these influential delegates.

I've been at so many events recently that have either totally lacked the student voice, or made third party reference to it through second-hand reportag from their teachers. This is a real chance for your students to make a global impact on problems that matter, wherever they are.

It’s a once-in-a-lifetime real world project-based learning opportunity, that ties into most teachers’ curriculum at any given point in the year.

We’re providing some brief points of inspiration to get you started, over the seven key themes, and will open up a wiki space today where teachers can collaborate and add to each other’s resources on the areas.

By October 24, we hope to have videos, photos, blogs and examples or prototypes of what young people believe might help solve challenges on their own doorstep. Sign up your class, school or district to begin sharing the ideas of your students. We want you to tell us how technology could be harnessed to:

• alleviate poverty and hunger
• improve education for all
• address gender inequality
• make sure everyone has access to health care
• protect our environment
• make disabled people’s lives easier
• close the gap between the developed and developing world

To take part, you just have to sign up your interest, and from there you’re able to submit posts to the project.

Pic: some problem finders in one of our schools in Ormeau, Brisbane, Australia.

Comments

[CarlyB]

Does anyone else out there participate in Project Citizen? The Center for Civic Education program is all about students looking at the world around them, finding something that needs fixing, and formulating solutions through research and exploration. Unfortunately, it is federally funded, and is on the government chopping block (along with other "extra" programs like the National Writing Project, and the National Endowment for the Humanities...).
At any rate, my students love Project Citizen, so I am excited about checking this out.

[Eric Manheim]

Ewan,

I am attending the University of South Alabama and one of the class's I am enrolled in is EDM310. I thought this was an interesting concept that you have came up with. Have you ever put this to practice before? What is the main goal that you are looking to achieve and accomplish by presenting the data you collect? I look forward to hearing more about the results that you get.

[Ewan McIntosh]

We've never done anything on this scale before - I know few who have. The goal we're hoping to achieve is that a couple of thousand of the world's leading telcos and Heads of State will be aware of the ideas of these young people, and that these ideas may well enter their high level discussions. To find out, we'll be recording interviews with many of the conference attendees and reactions to the young people's ideas.